Haulage grabs more
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• Road haulage is tightening its grip on the movement of freight in Europe. The latest EEC figures reveal that road haulage now accounts for 45% (by weight) of freight movements in the year to the third quarter of 1986.
This compares with a 12.1% share of freight movements going by rail, and 42.8% going by inland waterways.
During the year covered by the EEC figures, only road traffic and piggy back traffic (road vehicles on rail vehicles) increased their share of freight movements. Road freight movements rose 3.1% during the year, and piggyback freight traffic rose 21% (albeit from a low base figure).
Rail traffic accounted for only 14 million tonnes in the third quarter of 1986 compared with 52.2 million tonnes carried by roadfreight.
Over the first nine months of 1986 freight exports from Britain by road increased by 5%, while imports rose by 3%.
The EEC's Europa Transport report on Market Developments also contains comparisons of haulier's costs between different EEC countries.
The report shows that over the period from the start of 1982 to the start of 1986, UK haulier's total costs rose by 26.3% (expressed in national currency). Only French hauliers amongst the leading European countries experienced a larger increase in costs, up 33.6% over the period in question.
Fuel costs in Britain also increased strongly over the period, up 34.7%. This is a bigger increase than any experienced in any other leading EEC country.
0 The United Kingdom leads Europe in new registrations of commercial vehicles of over five tonnes with a total of 53,857. Second place goes to West Germany with 48,615 followed by France (34,729) and Italy (20,558).
The Netherlands has the largest commercial vehicle parc per head of population, reflecting the highly organised status of the industry in that country where 96% of all goods are carried by road, compared with 83% in the UK and 80% in Italy.
Italy has the largest number of operators — more than 200,000 compared with 29,000 in France, 20,000 in theUK and 7,000 in the Netherlands. 0 The Department of Transport has awarded a major contract to transport planning consultancy MVA to continue providing traffic forecasts for London.